Saturday, November 26, 2016

Every revolution needs a good crisis in order to germinate its seed. The cashless revolution is no different. ~Patrick Henningsen

Depending on who you ask, the idea of a cashless society is either a utopia of modern convenience or an Orwellian nightmare, but recent international events coupled with stories about ATM cyber-hacks are fair signals that a major push for the cashless society is underway and will intensify.

It seems the acceleration toward a cashless society is becoming like one of an amusement arcade amid the range of novel payment devices coming onto the market. These innovative payment devices are yet another novelty enticing customers toward fully traceable and trackable digital transactions, indeed cultivating user familiarity with a variety of cashless and contactless methods of payment. ~Steven Tritton

In India, the government just banned the use of two of the most commonly used bank notes, the 500 and 1000 rupee notes (worth about US$7 and $14 respectively), and is reportedly making a move to restrict gold imports. Citibank in Australia just announced that it would no longer accept coins or notes, opting instead for digital transactions only. Denmark, however, may be the first country to go fully cashless, as its government has already begun implementing a program to move retailers off of cash, with the openly stated endgame of creating a fully cashless society.

A cashless society is "no longer an illusion but a vision that can be fulfilled within a reasonable time frame," said Michael Busk-Jepsen, executive director of the Danish Bankers Association. [Source]

Is Resistance Futile, or Just Inconvenient?

To some, convenience and trendiness are the greatest selling points of a digital currency, but in order to make it obligatory for everyone, there must be a public safety threat included in the sales pitch, so that the government can claim that it is acting in our best interests when they force us to accept a digital currency.

Because an all-out ban on coins and bank notes is not something that would not be unanimously acceptable, to push for such a drastic societal and cultural change, a predictable game plan is being used. It's the simple dialectic of problem, reaction, solution.

We saw this in play as the threat of terrorism was used to fundamentally change the Bill of Rights and open the door for the creation of a surveillance and police state. We are seeing this in play right now as the push to control information has been introduced as a war on so-called fake news. Now, tell-tale signs are now emerging that the same type of media push is underway to make cash seem like a risky inconvenience in the modern technological world.

False Flags in the War on Cash

Consider the following stories, which foreshadow a coming public relations campaign to warn that developments in cyber warfare make the distribution of cash via ATMs too risky to continue.

Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year, using malicious software that forces machines to spit out cash, according to Russian cyber security firm Group IB.

Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp, the world's two largest ATM makers, said they were aware of the attacks and have been working with customers to mitigate the threat. The newly disclosed heists across Europe follow the hacking of ATMs in Taiwan and Thailand that were widely reported over the summer.

Although cyber criminals have been attacking cash machines for at least five years, the early campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs because hackers needed to have physical access to cash out machines.

The recent heists in Europe and Asia were run from central, remote command centers, enabling criminals to target large numbers of machines in "smash and grab" operations that seek to drain large amounts of cash before banks uncover the hacks.

"They are taking this to the next level in being able to attack a large number of machines at once," said Nicholas Billett, Diebold Nixdorf's senior director of core software and ATM Security. "They know they will be caught fairly quickly, so they stage it in such a way that they can get cash from as many ATMs as they can before they get shut down." [Source]

On November 20th, 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported on the following attacks in Asia, under the headline, "Hackers Program Bank ATMs to Spew Cash – After crimes in Taiwan and Thailand, the FBI warns of similar potential attacks in U.S."

In Taiwan and Thailand earlier this year, the criminals programmed bank ATMs to spew cash. Gang members stood in front of the machines at the appointed hour and collected millions of dollars.

Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned U.S. banks of the potential for similar attacks. The FBI said in a bulletin that it is "monitoring emerging reports indicating that well-resourced and organized malicious cyber actors have intentions to target the U.S. financial sector." [Source]

Of key significance is the warning that large-scale attacks on ATMs are imminent in the United States. This will be pitched as a problem that must be solved by the cashless society, with every corner of our financial lives being watched over by the very banking system that is already plundering our economy and making debt slaves out of our posterity.

A brief primer on the concerns of centrally managed digital currencies in a cashless society:

Liberated from the burden of physical currency, consumers could make purchases from the convenience of a mobile device. Every transaction would come equipped with fraud protection, reward points and a digital record of its time and location. Comprehensive tracking could help the Internal Revenue Service reclaim billions of tax dollars lost to unreported income, like the $80 I made selling a used refrigerator on Craigslist. Drug dealers, helpless without an anonymous medium of exchange, would acquire wholesome professions. El Chapo might become a claims adjuster.

But this universe is missing one of the fundamental aspects of human civilization. A world without paper money is a world without money. Money belongs to its current holder. It doesn't matter if a banknote was lost or stolen at some point in the past. Money is current; that's why it's called currency! A bank deposit, however, grants custody of money to the bank. An account balance is not actually money, but a claim on money.

This is an important distinction. A claim is only as good as its enforceability, and in a cashless society every transaction must pass through a financial gatekeeper. Banks, being private institutions, have the right to refuse transactions at their discretion. We can't expect every payment to be given due process. ~Elaine Ou

Time.com reported on the move to ban large US and Euro bills by 2018, citing the need to reduce crime, making the following statement:

Large currency denominations are associated with crime. They also make it easier to withdraw large cash sums from banks. [Source]

As if withdrawing cash from a bank is a criminal act. As if holding any or all of your earnings in your hand is a criminal act. As if having a way to protect ourselves from inflation and currency manipulation is a crime. As if we can ever have a crime free world when we are governed and ruled over by the biggest criminals the world has ever seen.

Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.